Neil Gaiman’s Anthony Weiner moment in Seattle

Author Neil Gaiman did not tweet a photo of his crotch while staying at Seattle’s W Hotel last weekend.

But he did accidentally give 1.6 million followers on Twitter his hotel phone number. Gaiman, who was in Seattle for a Town Hall literary event, intended to send the tweet privately to his wife.

“Oops,” Gaiman wrote on Twitter after discovering the error.

The errant tweet was gone within 20 seconds, but the author’s most devoted fans already had what they wanted: access to @Neilhimself. The hotel was flooded with calls, and Gaiman was quickly moved to another room.

“Hotel getting floods of calls from all over the planet, so they whisked me into new room and enrolled me in witness protection program,” Gaiman tweeted about an hour later.

Gaiman, known for novels such as “Stardust” and “Coraline,” is a prolific tweeter. Even after the errant tweet on Sunday, he responded to followers with comments about “the poor guy who gets the room after me” and how the “cellphone reception is rubbish.”

Spokespeople for the W Hotel chain and Gaiman’s publishing company didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Monday, so it’s not clear how many calls were made to the author’s room.

Gaiman is touring to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his novel “American Gods.” He recently told the Washington Post a planned sequel will partially deal with Twitter and social networking trends.